Performance and its measurement.

De, Broadbent · 1984 · OpenAlex-citations

DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2125.1984.tb02577.x

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Summary

This paper addresses the fundamental problem of measuring human performance, particularly in the context of assessing the side effects of psychotropic drugs. Broadbent argues that performance is not a unitary variable but comprises numerous distinct sub-functions. Consequently, a drug may impair specific cognitive modules while leaving others intact, making it impossible to predict a drug’s overall impact on complex tasks using a single performance test. The motivation for this analysis is practical: accurate assessment is required to determine the safety of individuals performing critical jobs, such as driving or operating machinery, under the influence of various substances. The author reviews several theoretical frameworks and experimental designs used to separate these performance functions. First, the paper examines the distinction between paced and unpaced tasks, tracing its origins to Mirsky and Rosvold (1960) and Broadbent (1953). This framework differentiates between "Class 1" conditions (e.g., sleeplessness, loud noise, amphetamine) that affect lower-level monitoring and efficiency, and "Class 2" conditions (e.g., time of day, introversion, ethanol, barbiturates) that affect higher-level strategic compensation. Second, the paper discusses Sanders’ (1981) stage-processing model, which isolates effects on specific processing stages such as sensory encoding, memory search, and response execution. Evidence cited includes findings that amphetamine affects response selection while barbiturates affect stimulus encoding. Third, the paper explores the role of strategy selection, noting that factors like noise may alter the strategies individuals use to solve problems rather than impairing the execution of those strategies. The findings indicate that different drugs and environmental conditions have selective effects on specific cognitive modules. For instance, ethanol impairs recognition memory but not identification from partial visual information, while noise affects the retrieval of rare versus common semantic examples depending on the subject's prior experience and strategy. The paper demonstrates that interactions between variables are consistent within functional classes (e.g., cancellation effects between Class 1 variables) but inconsistent across classes. This confirms that performance is modular and that no single test can capture the full profile of a drug’s effects. The significance of these findings lies in the methodology for assessing drug safety. Broadbent concludes that relying on a single test or even a perfect simulation of a specific job is insufficient, as simulations cannot account for all potential functional impairments or generalize to other high-stakes environments. Instead, the author advocates for using a battery of analytical tests to create a comprehensive profile of a drug’s effects on various cognitive functions. This approach allows for a more rigorous evaluation of risk, recommending that individuals be removed from dangerous tasks if any relevant function is impaired, regardless of whether that specific function is explicitly simulated in the test.

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• cognitive capacity variation